[jira] [Created] (HADOOP-8115) configuration entry in core-site.xml gets silently ignored

["Marc Harris (Created) (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

configuration entry in core-site.xml gets silently ignored
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                 Key: HADOOP-8115
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP-8115
             Project: Hadoop Common
          Issue Type: Bug
         Environment: v 0.20.203.0
Standard tar release (i.e. not Cloudera or anything)
Ubuntu
            Reporter: Marc Harris


The order of loading configuration files (and thus the order of priority from least to most) seems to be as follows:
core-default.xml, core-site.xml, hdfs-default.xml, hdfs-site.xml.

This means that a configuration parameter that is set in hdfs-default.xml will override that value set in core-site.xml. 

Either
(1) Parameters should be able to go in any site.xml file, and override any default.xml, even if they don't "match", or
(2) Putting a parameter in the "wrong" site.xml file should be considered an error, and result in at the very least a warning.
What in fact happens is that the parameter is silently ignored, which is the worst combination.

I my opinion, it is counter-intuitive that a value in a site.xml file should be overridden by a value in a default.xml file, so I would choose option (1).

The particular example here was dfs.http.address, by the way.

I marked this as major rather than minor since it was not at all obvious what the problem (and therefore the workaround was) and eventually required attaching to a running production service with a debugger to find out why the parameter I was setting was being ignored.


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